I tried another self-portrait last week. As always, I’m frustrated with my inability to capture my own self in paint, and also with the weird distortions that come up (how did I end up looking so masculine?). However, I’m quite pleased with the shadows on my neck, and I think there’s something nice about the dabby blended colors. I’d been looking at Walter’s digitalscapes right before I started, and though my work doesn’t look anything like his, I think I was influenced by his impressionistic light/color-play and fuzzy outlines.
Self-portrait January 2012
My portraits always irk me because I don’t seem to know how to work at length in the medium without everything becoming muddy and ponderous — at least, the end results look that way to me, since I have a very different impression in my head. Erik said, though, “You only think it sucks because you’re so much better now. A year or two ago you would have been thrilled to make this.” He’s right.
All the same, I wanted to know if I could capture myself any more accurately in a quick sketch, so I picked up the brush and looked into the mirror and did as fast a drawing as I could — I think I was done in 5 minutes or less. This one looks even less like me, so it wasn’t a useful exercise, though it was still fun to do (especially after laboring away at the other portrait for almost an hour).
Quickly sketched self-portrait
Actually, though, I’m now looking over the first painted self-portrait I ever did, a little over a year ago (August 2010), and I think it’s got something too. I’m impressed with my level of fine detail, even if the overall effect is pretty wooden. That one was mostly gouache, if I remember right, which is probably how I managed the detail without the colors blending too much. Maybe on my next attempt I’ll try gouache again.
It always interests me to go back over my earlier self-portraits and compare them all to one another. I almost always feel that there’s something redeeming about each, and very often I even feel that some of that good quality has gotten lost as I’ve “improved” with time. With each comparison I can never draw any conclusions except that I’d better just keep going. Perhaps that’s the only real conclusion to draw, anyway. Keep going, keep going!
**edit**
I have to mention, also, that as a model I am getting pretty fed up with trying to paint myself too. It’s hard, and it’s boring, to sit staring into a mirror and try to get my likeness that way. I so wish I could step outside of my body for an hour and see myself at a few arms’-length. As a painter I long for more expressiveness in the portraits, and as the sitter I want the same in my poses. Grrr.
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 
In response to your edit first: As a person who’s often frustrated by my own inability to see angles that seem very clear once somebody else points them out to me, I offer a suggestion. Ask Erik or a friend to take a bunch of pictures of you in various poses you might like to paint yourself in. Close ups and full body shots, facing and not facing the camera. Choose one or a few to compose a painting from. Maybe worth a try?
I think Erik’s right about how you perceive your progress. I read something recently (I would have thought it was one of the wonderful quotes you’ve pointed me to 🙂 ) that explained how artists who care about producing good work, constantly raise the bar of what they expect of themselves as they continue to practice and observe. Every time we expand our abilty to recognize quality, through education and/or observation, we expand our ideas of the quality of work we want to produce. Maybe in that way we’re never completely satisfied (happy with our work at certain times, yes, but not completely satisfied) and that’s more a good thing than a bad thing in the long run.
Thank you for your thoughts, Ré! I’ve shied away from photography in my self-portraits thus far because so much is lost between the camera image and the real thing — but maybe it’s time to give it another try. I’m obviously losing something even with the real thing, so what’s the risk?! At any rate I’m sure I’ll have fun posing for the camera. 🙂
Could you be thinking of the Ira Glass quote Kimber mentioned below, which I posted in May? The sentiment holds, anyway. Thank you for the reminder. It’s so easy to forget when I’m feeling frustrated.
Lisa I really like both of your portraits. They are both unique and beautiful. And for a 5 min sketch I have to say very well done. I am very pleased to know that my work as an influence on the way you would like to approach your work. What an honor. I also enjoyed your detailed expression of frustration with the process of creating. So intimate and revealing. It is encouraging me to do the same.
Thank you so much, Walter. I really appreciate what you’re saying here. I think I need to document my frustrations more often, if only as a reminder to myself when I’m frustrated! “You’ve been here before, you’ll be here again. It’s part of the territory.”
Last year I went into the studio and kept going back and kept painting and drawing self portraits. i really tried to do my best. – looked in a mirror, tried it without looking in the mirror. None looked like me. One looked like my son – I put some of them out for my friends to see and they didn’t think the paintings looked like me. – don’t know what I’m saying here but it was an interesting exercise- frustrating though because I couldn’t get what I wanted.
Interesting, isn’t it? People say that every person we paint contains something of ourselves… you’d think that would mean we would all be great at self-portraits, but instead it’s the exact opposite.
Actually the paintings I liked but they didn’t look like me.
Do you think they captured any of the “feel” of you, even if the features didn’t resemble you? Sometimes I think mine do… but then of course it drives me crazy to not get the physical resemblance!
I can’t “do” self-portraits. The fact that you can come up with something that it recognisably yourself is admirable….and the only way to improve your satisfaction level is to keep going. Ré’s idea of photographs is a good one. That will give you more time. Maybe subconciously your thinking that you’ve got to get it done real quick if you are in the moment, as it were.
Well, I’ve been thinking of trying to do them quickly because I have a tendency to overwork and overdo… but it’s true, I’ve never given a self-portrait a really good long time in process. I’ll try that next (and with gouache, which is more forgiving than watercolor… IMO at least).
Thank you for the encouragement. It helps!!
Can you imagine? Just freezing, unzipping, and getting out for a better look? Oooh, I love that idea! (And your self portraits, and self portraits in general, because it seems important, somehow.)
I know!! It would be incredible! For so many purposes besides self-portraits… it’d help immeasurably in getting dressed, if nothing else. 😉
Self-portraits feel important to me, too. What I can’t decide is whether they’re more important to “the world” or just important to my own process of self-discovery and growth. Or is that the same thing? 🙂
Dear Lisa, have you seen this quote? I found it so inspiring for my own work. “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
― Ira Glass
I liked both of your self-portraits, but the quick one captured a certain mixture of vulnerable playfulness that illustrates one aspect of you quite remarkably.
I find your work inspiring.
Kimber what a fantastic quote by Ira Glass. It is so true. I am a visual artist (please check out my blog) and this past year my volume of work was very high. And because of it, I felt a corresponding growth in the connectivity. It all becomes very beaitiful.
Walter
Kimber, thank you for reminding me of that quote!! I posted it back in May when I was doing other watercolor figures, but I can never recall it too often — it’s so important. Why do we all think that sucky work means we’ve failed? It means we’re trying. Got to keep remembering and remembering that.
Thank you for the kind words on the self-portraits too. I love that you think I have vulnerable playfulness. Both those qualities are ones I want to cultivate in my art and my life! And they speak to your yoga teaching, too. 🙂
Much love and appreciation to you. ❤
Yes, speaking of capturing the feel of me I have done that during radiation I did a really painful scary one of me, Then I nick named them all – portrait of carla as a jewish intellectual, Portrait of Carla as a young girl etc. I had a huge urge to do them before I was told i had cancer , Subconsciously I think I had to paint who I was at the time before things changed. All of them do in a way resemble me. I see it but they don’t look like what I see in the mirror or in a photograph, Maybe I’ll do a self portrait post. thanks for the interchange of ideas.
I love the idea of nicknaming self-portraits. Maybe I should try that. I know what you mean about wanting to paint who you are before things chance. I think that’s a big part of why I feel compelled to paint myself, and indeed why I make art in general; I want to preserve these moments of my life as I live them, because I know they will pass. As I will, eventually. Got to leave something behind.
I’d love to see a self-portrait post from you!
You have incorporated the background very well in both paintings. Both paintings looked so finished. they show a confident woman.
Thank you! But… background in both paintings?
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